Monday 20th December - Laurie and Thea
All the fields are under a thick layer of the snow and my dad is busy feeding all the animals and making sure they have enough water as all the pipes are frozen. Luckily we got all our yurts down in plenty of time before the snow came and they are now stored away ready for next year. The blankets are all out airing so they will be fresh for next year.
We have all been out sledging. Mossy and Wren absolutely love it and have big fixed grins when they go zooming down the hills.
Thea and I have been slowly ticking off jobs that need to be done for next season. Very soon we will have a page on our website of your holiday pictures at the Yurt Farm. Please send us any good ones that we can put up.
Saturday 23rd October - Laurie
Two new pigs arrived at The Yurt Farm a few weeks ago and Mossy has decided to call them Butter and Marmite. Wren can watch them for hours but the pigs, two young boars, are more interested in eating and ploughing up the ground.
We are now in the last week of our season which has been a really fun and busy one. Next April, when we start again seems a long way away but we are already taking bookings. Thank you to everyone for coming to stay this year and supporting what we are doing. Every week has always been different with new yurters arriving, new jobs to do and the constantly changing weather to keep us on our toes. We have not been bored once!
Saturday 2nd October - Laurie & Thea
What a busy August and September its been. We're just recovering from my sisters 30th birthday party on the farm which was a great success.
We are excited to see what our friend Nick will go on to do next after he spent the summer working with us. He managed to catch up on lots of the little jobs that needed doing, like making the herb box fridges, seats for the campfires, a washbasin by the toilets, endless wood chopping, painting the farm buildings and lots more. A huge thank you Nick!
Its harvest time and the vegetable shop is at its fullest, packed with sumptuous bounty from the field. There are huge squash, chunky broccoli, fat leeks, juicy fresh sweetcorn and a freezer full of lamb and beef.
Tuesday 10th August - Laurie
Its been a busy month so far. Nick has made a new sink which is now beside the compost toilets. Fittingly, it's made from unused pieces of the toilet's timber frame. We've made a whole set of seats for to lie back around the campfire. The grass has been cut and the silage has been made on the farm. The Red Kites were soaring and diving around the yurts looking for a fresh morsel on the newly mown field.
Friday 30th July - Laurie
On our walks down to the yurts early each day, Thea and I have been regularly seeing a lolloping hare slowly making its way across the fields. My dad then found one of the hare's tiny leverets hiding amongst the lettuces in the vegetable field,, thank fully it hadn't gobbled too many up.
This picture of one of the farms meadows was taken just before a big rain shower. The large drooping beech tree hedges provided the perfect shelter from the brief but amazing shower.
Friday 16th July - Laurie
Our friend Nick has joined us for the summer to help us catch up a few jobs. Despite Mossy and Wrens best efforts they are not quite able to join in yet...i'm sure it won't be too long though. So, instead, Nick has been making some handsome herb box fridges. We are now ready to try out our first one, I'll put up a picture when its full of herbs and flowers.
A week of rain has given the grass and yurts a good soaking but everyone has remained dry, chirpy and toasty warm in their yurts. Our firewood store will need replenishing as soon as the sun shows its face, which wont be too long in coming i hope.
Wednesday 23rd June
We were on S4C Ffermio on Monday which we think went quite well. You can watch the program online at S4C, subtitles are available.
Saturday 5th June - Laurie
What a lovely week. The school holidays are nearly over and the children staying have all been having lots of fun together. They have been running around in the sun, swinging on the rope swing and seeing how many people it is possible to squish onto to the slide. The simplest things are usually the best.
Sunday 23rd May - Laurie
I picked up our pigs on Tuesday and they have now settled into their new home in the field beside the yurts. They are sharing the field with the cows and seem to have become the best of friends. After a lenghty discussion they have been named Truffle and Mr T.
The farm shop is full of strawberries which have been keeping all the children happy and a little bit messy.
Sunday 25th April - Thea and Laurie
After almost 3 weeks of sunshine and dry weather we finally got some rain last night. It was just what the plants needed. Our little renewable powerstation has been performing really well and keeping everyones showers toasty.
Our yurt makers Sarah and Steve 07791569175 modified our larger green yurt during the week and it now looks even more amazing. The internal support poles are gone and we have now have a curvier looking roof and it feels really spacious inside.
Monday 12th April - Laurie
The chickens have been enjoying their first full day down in the yurt meadow. We've made some changes to their pen after unsuccessfully trying to keep the chickens safe from foxes last year. So far so good. All 3 chickens have laid eggs in the hen house... i hope our guests enjoy finding and cooking them up over the campfire.
Wednesday 7th April - Laurie
What a lovely day, the sun came out and the yurt meadow filled with children flying kites, playing football and running around. It was just perfect.
Tuesday 6th April - Laurie
Our first guests are happily snuggled down in their yurts. We have been blessed with lots of rain and wind over the last week which our yurts have stood up to well. Last night we were awake listening to the wind howling and worrying about our guest only to find them all chirpy this morning after a soothing nights sleep. The new extension to the cabin is working really well at keeping the weather at bay, i'll pop a photo up tomorrow of it all finished.
We are very happy to be featured in the new edition of Cool Camping Wales, it's a big honour to us to be recognised and reviewed in this popular book.
Also, we are featured in the Time Out "Our favourite sites in Britain" book in which they give us a brilliant review and
with lots of great pictures. Thank you.
Thursday 18th March - Thea
We made it....all the yurts went up in the sunshine.and we are now getting excited about welcoming our first visitors of the year. Laurie is making a beautiful oak table to go under the covered area by the cabin...and our friend Dan (who makes lovely mugs) is going to help us make a pizza oven to go there too. I can almost taste the summer!
We can't sit down to a meal without being distracted by a lamb being born in the yard. There are two fresh bull calves in the field and more due any day. Mossy and I spotted a blue tit darting into a nest box in the garden on our way to post some letters. Laurie saw a hare in the yurt field and Matt and Suzanne saw a weasel this morning..spring is on the way!
Thursday 11th March - Laurie
The sun has been shining for nearly 2 weeks so we've been very fortunate to have done lots of outside jobs in the dry. The yurts are going up this weekend so we have been giving the framework a spring clean and a fresh coat of linseed oil.
The first calf of the year was born today, a fine Hereford bull calf that Mossy couldn't wait to see. The cows will continue to calve over the next few weeks so some of our early guests might get to see a really fresh one. Lambing is going really well and keeping Matthew and Suzanne busy, there's usually a noisy new set of twins to wake up to every morning.
The cabins extended covered area is now complete, all i need to do is find some wood in the shed to make a big table for it.
Thursday 5th March - Laurie
We've nearly finished building the new timber framed extension to make a bit more space for everyone to relax in. There will be a table and seats so you can enjoy a meal while the sun sets. Fingers crossed we should have it finished over the weekend.
Meanwhile, the first lambs of the season have been born, we had triplets this morning! And it looks like the cows are about to start calving.....a feeling of spring is in the definitely in the air.
Saturday 20th February - Laurie
After the winter wind made a mess of our old woodshed, we decided to build a new one. Thea's dad Jan joined me last weekend to turn a lovely pile of Ian Hedges douglas fir into a big dry shed for this years yurt wood. All we have to do now is chop and move the big pile in front of the shed inside.
We were featured in the Saturday Telegraph Magazine a few weeks ago. Click here to see what they thought.
Tuesday 9th February - Laurie
We''ve spent the last two days planting some more trees in the yurt field and creating a new hedge around the parking area. It is a perfect time to plant them while the ground is moist and the weather is dry.
I've been digging in some steps down to our 21ft yurt to make it easier to reach. Whilst doing this i saw that our badgers have been very busy rooting around this winter. Hopefully someone will be lucky enough to see some this year.
Sunday 31st January - Laurie & Thea
It's been an exciting month, Mossy has a lovely new baby brother called Wren. Luckily he waited for the snow to clear before he arrived. On the same day 7 yellow chicks hatched although we didn't see them for days whilst the mum kept them warm in her feathers.
Work starts tomorrow on setting up the yurt site once again, as there are a few burst pipes to fix, doors to sand and an outdoor extension to the cabin to build. We're both really excited and motivated about the new season.
And lastly, The Yurt Farm will be featured in this coming Saturday's Telegraph 'Travel Section', we look forward to reading it.
